Bills of Lading

Devised by Lee Sallows, each of these lists inventories its own contents:

  • fifteen e’s, seven f’s, four g’s, six h’s, eight i’s, four n’s, five o’s, six r’s, eighteen s’s, eight t’s, four u’s, three v’s, two w’s, three x’s
  • sixteen e’s, five f’s, three g’s, six h’s, nine i’s, five n’s, four o’s, six r’s, eighteen s’s, eight t’s, three u’s, three v’s, two w’s, four x’s
| Language

All Aboard

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Taft_at_Mitchell.jpg

William Howard Taft once found himself stranded at a country railroad station and was told that the express train would not stop for a lone passenger.

He wired the conductor: STOP AT HICKSVILLE. LARGE PARTY WAITING TO CATCH TRAIN.

When the train stopped, Taft got aboard and told the conductor, “You can go ahead. I am the large party.”

| History

Paradoxical Undressing

Hypothermia victims are often found with clothing removed, as if they’ve been assaulted. It’s not clear why a freezing person would undress; possibly their judgment is impaired, and possibly exhaustion brings a sensation of warmth to the skin.

| Oddities

“A Rare Circle of Friends”

Sir Henry Blackman, of Lewes, on being knighted in 1782, gave a dinner to sixteen friends, with an invitation to them to dine with him annually for forty years; four of them died during the first four years, but twenty-eight years rolled round before another seat became vacant at the festive board. In 1814 two died, aged between eighty and ninety; so that ten remained of the original number at the thirty-third anniversary, held in July, 1815!

— Curiosities for the Ingenious, 1825

| Oddities

Careful!

Before conductors used batons, they kept time by banging a long staff against the floor. In January 1687, Jean-Baptiste Lully was conducting a Te Deum in this way when he struck his toe. The wound turned gangrenous, the gangrene spread — and he died.

| Art · Death

An Alarming Paradox

In 1735, an anonymous “lover of mathematicks” offered the following conundrum:

“‘Tis certainly Matter of Fact, that three certain Travellers went on a Journey, in which, tho’ their Heads travelled full twelve Yards more than their Feet, yet they all return’d alive, with their Heads on.”

How is this possible?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles